"I loathe the Yezidis," Carrera said to his chief engineer, Sam Cheatham, and Fahad when he had called them together in the valley to explain what he wanted done.
" You loathe them?" Fahad had answered. "Let me tell you about the Yezidis-"
"No time, Fahad," Carrera said, holding one hand up, palm out, "and I've heard all about it before."
"I wish I could put you up about sixteen of the things." Cheatham sighed, referring to the Stollen. "But I just don't have the material or the skilled manpower. I've only got my seventy-odd engineers, plus whatever I can use from the line cohorts' engineer sections. But they, frankly, are sappers, not builders. And the Yezidi are not going to be worth much besides scut work."
"How many can you put up that will be strong enough to take a direct hit from an eight-inch gun?" Carrera asked. "And remember, we have to be able to shelter about twelve hundred men in them for a few days."
"In the time I have," Cheatham answered, "with the material I have and with the workers I have, I can put up four, each about thirty feet by one hundred, and with a thick enough overhead cover to take a couple of eight-inch hits. By the way, sir, what makes you think the Sumeris even have eight inch guns?"
"Nothing," Carrera shook his head in negation. "But they might have them."
"Okay," Cheatham said agreeably. "Four Stollen coming up. This weather is going to be a problem, you know. Concrete-at least the kind I have been able to scrounge locally-doesn't set worth a shit in this kind of cold. How about if I blast a shitload of rock out of the last ridge and use that to reinforce?"
"That's fine, Sam. Do it however you think best. But get me my Christmas cakes cooked."
"What if they try to shell my engineers while they're working?" Cheatham asked, not unreasonably.
"I don't think they will, Sam, mainly because they don't have much in their strategic inventory except some sympathy from whoever hates the FSC. They'll want the coalition to fire the first shot. Even so, until H Hour-3, or at least until you're done building, you've got priority of fires-direct control if you think you need it-over all the legion's artillery plus the 105mm battalion from the 731st ^ Airborne."
"Hmmm. Shells would arrive here before counterbattery could have any effect. So, if you don't mind, I'll start by digging some slit trenches for my people before we start work on the Stollen."
"That's fine," Carrera had answered. "Don't dawdle over it, though. And remember I also need some special shelters built for the artillery."
For Cheatham's slit trenches he used two entrenching machines that had been purchased from the Volgans. These were of the smaller variety, having an arm of sorts that they dragged behind them and which more or less horizontally spun a series of steel buckets to cut a neat trench about seventy-five centimeters wide and a meter and a half deep. The frozen state of the ground made this a slower than normal operation but within a day the entrenching machines had scraped out sixteen reasonably sized slit trenches.
The Sumeris had paid no mind at all, so far as Cheatham could see, to the operation of the entrenching machines.
While the trench cutters were in operation, gangs of Yezidi with picks and shovels began excavating the outlines of the Stollen to a depth of about a meter. The Sumeris paid no attention to them, either.
When the engineers began blasting off slabs of rock from the far slope of Multichucha Ridge, the Sumeris had manned their trenches and bunkers. Still, when no attack materialized, they went back to their normal routine of shivering, freezing and, if the Yezidi were to be believed, buggering each other. In this belief Fahad and the Chaldeans seemed to concur.
They were still, so far as Cheatham could tell, buggering each other when the frameworks for the Stollen began to go up.
Perhaps they had run out of lubrication-that, or they'd discovered that weapons oil was a poor substitute-when the layer of concrete was poured. They seemed fascinated by that, sitting atop the lips of their trenches, chatting amiably among each other, and generally having a good time watching the legion and the Yezidis work in the cold.
Supplies of a less toxic lubricant must have come through, though, because they disappeared again when the Yezidi gangs began piling dirt atop the concrete. Still, so Cheatham and the Yezidis surmised, those supplies must have been limited. They were back again to watch as the dirt was covered with large chunks and slabs of rock.
Sam Cheatham didn't bother to camouflage the Stollen. Anybody who thought that a six to seven meter high loaf of rock, dirt and concrete sticking up out of a flat plain in plain view of the enemy was going to be hidden by a few odd bits of grass was either smoking something or, as was perhaps the case, too busy being buggered to worry about. Besides, snow would be along any day now and it would do a better job of camouflage than anything that could be done artificially.
Hill 1647, Command Post, 2/2/461 AC
Mukkaddam, or Lieutenant Colonel, Ali al Tikriti had a problem. No, that wasn't quite right. What he had was approximately seven hundred and one problems. The seven hundred, give or take a few, were his men, whom he despised as a lot of illiterate, lazy, good for nothing peasants. The one, and that was the worst of the lot, was the dictator-Saleh, his fourth cousin, twice removed-sitting in what was likely to prove a very temporary safety in one of his palaces near Babel.
In fact, of all the people Ali had to deal with, the only one who was not a problem was the thirteen-year-old boy currently kneeling between Ali's legs with his penis in his mouth. And that was at best a temporary distraction from all Ali's other problems, problems which were altogether too likely to prove extremely and unfortunately permanent.
Ali would rather have had one of his two wives kneeling between his legs. They, however, weren't there, while the young boy was.
For an all too short period of time, the thirteen year old was able to distract Ali from his many concerns. After tousling the boy's hair and tipping him generously, Ali buttoned his trousers, refastened his belt, and left his rather luxuriously appointed, and very deep, personal bunker to walk the front trench of the rightmost of the two fortresses atop the ridge.
Ali owed his position not to military skill and competence but to family connections. Oh, yes, he'd been to all the schools-and some of them were quite decent-that his army offered. But when one is that tightly connected to the ruling clan, and able to afford substantial bribes to one's teachers, it was not strictly speaking necessary to learn one blessed thing to graduate with honors. In fairness, it had to be said that Ali had learned somewhat more than most would have in his position. At the very least, he had learned something of military engineering. Thus, his trenches were narrow and deep, his bunkers had substantial overhead cover, and his obstacles were well sighted. More than that one could hardly expect.
Ali's men cowered as he walked the line. Occasionally, and not always for any obvious reason, he would lash out with his riding crop to slash a soldier across the face or neck. His cousin ruled the country by fear; could Ali do any less? Besides, the shit-footed clumsy peasants he had to work with understood nothing but fear and the lash. Moreover, terrorizing his men helped allay the worry that the sight of those four large bunkers being built in plain view instilled in Ali. He didn't understand them, didn't understand their purpose. Why put so much construction effort into something so ridiculously obvious and so completely passive? Queries to the local Yezidi had given answers that were not been entirely satisfactory. And queries to Problem Number One, his cousin, had been brushed aside.